Stranded South Florida-bound passengers take to social media to vent complaints

June 24, 2011|By Ihosvani Rodriguez, Sun Sentinel

A man in women's panties, a football player wearing saggy pants and a South Florida city councilwoman Tweeting made for turbulent public relations for US Airways this week.

The Arizona-based carrier's latest publicity woe came Thursday evening after a Port St. Lucie councilwoman and other passengers took to the social media airways late Thursday to vent. They said an airline employee went off for a walk and never came back. At least 150 dumbfounded passengers hoping to board an evening flight for West Palm Beach were left abandoned at the gate in Charlotte, N.C., they complained.

Airline officials said Friday they were looking into the matter and wondered if it was only a case of "punchy" passengers armed with smartphones during a late-evening flight delay.

"We're taking this seriously and still gathering information," said airline spokesman Todd Lemacher.

Earlier this week, the carrier made headlines after it allowed a man to fly wearing only women's underwear, while arresting a college football player for wearing pants too low from the waist several days later.

On Thursday, feeling angry and helpless, Port St. Lucie Councilwoman Michelle Berger and her fellow travelers used social media giant Twitter hoping their 140-character complaints would ultimately reach airline officials. Twitter allows its estimated 140 million users to exchange or share messages with each other throughout the social media network.

But the Tweets from passengers of US Airways Flight 1827 apparently went unheeded.

For at least half an hour, passengers Tweeted, made phone calls to airline administrators and at one point took pictures of a fellow traveler answering the unattended gate's telephone.

That photo was distributed on the Internet via Twitter several times in a matter of minutes.

All along, not a airline single employee showed up at Gate C-18.

"It was bizarre. I didn't get home until 3 a.m." said Berger in a phone interview Friday. "Very bizarre."

Ryan Morgan (who messages on Twitter under the name @arrownuke), a Fort Lauderdale-based software consultant, was the first to signal that something was amiss.

A frequent flier who has earned "Chairman" status with the airline, Morgan said in a phone interview on Friday that a gate agent appeared agitated as passengers complained about delays. He and others said the agent declined to give out any information why their flight to West Palm Beach was delayed.

Morgan then posted on Twitter that the gate agent was refusing to let passengers aboard.

"The plane is here, the crew is on, the gate agent refuses to board us because his shift is over," Morgan posted.

Morgan and Berger said on Friday that the employee walked away in a huff and mumbled something about "a walkout."

"Waiting at C18 for my flight from CLT [Charlotte] to PBI [West Palm Beach]. it's late, the boarding staff has left and no one is here to board us."

Morgan said Friday at one point, he called the airline's complaint hotline. A representative there called the tower. Someone at the tower called the unattended gate. A passenger answered the ringing phone.

Morgan snapped a picture of the passenger and posted it on Twitter:

"#USAirways check the picture. The phone at the gate was ringing nonstop and a passenger answered. http://t.co/FvDuDm2."

Berger, the St. Lucie councilwoman, posted this Tweet under her Twitter handle, @MichelleLberger:

"#USairways employee walk out in #Charlotte. Awesome."

After a manager finally arrived, the passengers were finally allowed into the plane.

Tavarez reported via a Tweet: "Finally boarded and in true #USAirways fashion, they are denying that anything was wrong."

The airline's website indicates that the flight from Charlotte to West Palm Beach was scheduled to arrive at 11:59 p.m. on Thursday. It landed at 1:13 a.m. Friday.

Lemacher, the airline spokesman, said officials hadn't noticed the Tweets until contacted by the Sun Sentinel.

Lemacher explained that preliminary findings indicate that the plane was having mechanical problems. He acknowledged that the agent left the gate "for a substantial amount of time" to check on the aircraft, but said he returned to the gate later.

"We just saw the Tweets, but it could be a case of punchy passengers late in the evening ," Lemacher said on Friday afternoon.

Earlier this week, University of New Mexico football player DeShon Marman was arrested on a US Airways flight at San Francisco airport after authorities alleged he refused to pull up his pants. Six days earlier, US Airways passengers complained that the airlines allowed a man to fly wearing women's panties and mid-thigh stockings.

Following Thursday's incident, passengers said they haven't heard from airlines officials. While Twitter ultimately did not solve their problem, they said the social media platform gave them a chance to vent and, well, be social.

"The main thing was that after we started Tweeting, there was a sense of camaraderie," said Berger. "We felt we were all in this together."